A/N: This is a short one. I'll post another in a couple of days. Thanks, everyone for reading and reviewing.

To RoryFaller: Yes, I pick on poor Carson...again.

Chapter 10

Devil's Arcade

"Hurry Rodney, please God, hurry. I don't know how much time I have." Carson chanted softly to himself; the mantra his anchor to reality in Lydia's drug-induced Hell. The fire burned him, a conflagration ignited along his bones, eroding him from the inside until he melted, lost substance, became one with the liquid fire. He drowned in it; a river of flames scoured and purified and cleansed him, stripped him bare of everything he'd ever believed, every truth he'd ever known. He was nothing, a hollow shell; the empty casing of a man once vibrant, now stuffed with the ashes left behind by the inferno.

The burning eased, settled into a warm flush across taut sensitive skin. His eyes hurt, the light, already too bright, was excruciating and he pressed his hands over his eyes, an inadequate mask to black out the light. He was thirsty; his mouth and throat desiccated from the drugs. Lydia was right about one thing; as a doctor, he knew what to expect from her little chemical cocktail. The doctor ticked off the symptoms of overdose: light sensitivity, dry mouth, fever, tachycardia. All present and accounted for. His heart raced, bounced in his chest as if searching for an escape from its bony cage. "Water, the doctor reminded him. Ye need to stay hydrated; stay as strong as possible. Give Rodney time to find ye."

Carson squinted through the brilliance that assaulted his sensitive eyes. The sink on the opposite side of the room beckoned. He blinked; "did that bloody thing just wave at me?" He scrubbed a shaky hand over his face as he wiped away the image. He stared at the sink again. White porcelain, stainless steel tap, it perched precariously atop a slender pedestal. "Nothing animate about it; I must be seein' things. Bloody woman and her bloody drugs." Carson cursed Lydia under his breath as he struggled to his feet.

A half dozen mis-starts and he finally stood, splay-legged and wobbly as a newborn colt. He shuffle-lurched his way across the floor and ignored the way it folded and buckled under his feet. The walls wavered; he stayed away from them. He knew them to be traps, lying in wait. He knew if he ventured too close, they'd wrap him in suffocating whiteness. The white was wrong. The absence of color drained him. He closed his eyes and watched, horrified as the greens, and blues and purples slid below his lids, sucked away into the white. He sobbed, grieved for the lost colors stolen by the nothingness.

The walls lunged at him, fingerless grabby hands stretched for him. He screamed, thrashed at them. They retreated, leaving him gasping for air in a stifling room. "So hot, too hot. God why is it so hot?" He ran a hand over his face. Fevered skin seared his fingertips and he rubbed them over his jeans. He studied the ends of his fingers, curious. The burning intensified and he screamed again as blue-green Wraith claws burst from under his nails. "Nonononono not real. Not real." He panted, swallowed against the deluge of terror flooding over him.

Hard bony fingers clutched his shoulder. He yelled, spun, backpedaled on shaky legs; there was no one there. Carson cringed, his back pressed painfully against the unyielding surface of the sink. He turned the tap, relieved when water gushed from the pipe. He cupped his hands under the cool flow, filled them, and allowed the water to flow over them as if he could wash away the nightmare. He drank from his hands, the water pure bliss against his rough throat. Cool and soothing, the water ran down his chin and his arms as he tilted his head back.

Carson choked, revulsion swept over him in a tsunami of disgust. He spat blood from his mouth. Cloying and metallic, it coated his tongue and his teeth and his throat. He swiped a hand over his mouth. Blood coated his hands; he felt it thick on his face. He backed from the sink. Blood surged from the spigot; viscous and oppressive, the coppery tang of it filled the air as he stared.

"You did this. You killed us. That's our blood you see. That's my blood you drank." A woman dressed in white oozed from the wall. Her eyes sparkled with condemnation as she judged him. "You killed us all. How does it feel, Doctor? You were supposed to help us; save us. Instead you brought nothing but death and suffering. And now it is our turn. Welcome to my world, Carson; welcome to my Hell."

"Perna? No. I...I...didnae...no...not real...not real...not real."

Perna laughed. "Isn't it? Look around, what do you see?"

Carson looked. He saw failure after failure standing in mute testimony to his shortfalls; to all the times he stumbled, all the times he fell. All the ones he couldn't save; they stood in the room pressed against him, crowded him. Heavy, oppressive, they weighed against his soul, stripped him of his identity. They bared his soul in a naked vulnerability, left him defenseless. Carson felt himself break; felt little pieces tear away from his being. He felt his molecules dissolve and float weightless in time. Time stretched and folded and pulled him apart. He hunched on his knees, his hands over his head, as he folded in on himself. He couldn't meet their eyes; couldn't bear to see the damnation of his failure in their eyes. He pressed his hands against his ears as he shut out his screams and their laughter.

"How does it feel Dr. Beckett? How does it feel?" Michael hissed in his ear. "Now you know. Now you see. Now you know how I felt." Michael's laughter reverberated through the room, drowning out the other voices. "You've earned this, you know. Tampering with my DNA, rewriting my consciousness, stripping away the essence of what I was; who I am."

Michael crouched beside the huddled wreck on the floor. "You judged us. Found us wanting because we are Wraith. What gave you that right? How does it feel to be judged, Dr. Beckett?" Michael's voice sliced at Carson like razors and shredded his shattered soul.

"I jus' wanted ta help. I jus'...wanted ta find...a way...a way...for us ta live...live together. It wasnae supposed ta turn out like this. I dinna wan' it like this...I jus' wanted things ta be better."

"Better for whom, Doctor? You? Humans? Certainly not for me and my brothers. Tell me, Doctor, what is it that makes humans better than Wraith? Tell me, who are you, to decide?"

"I...I...I'm sorry...please...no more...please." Carson whispered in a ragged voice. He pulled his hands tighter over his ears. The watchers closed ranks, pressed against him. They pulled at him, picked apart his psyche and Perna laughed and the Hoffans laughed and the others laughed and Michael crouched beside him and laughed loudest of all.

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